"Wicked Game" Ch. 3

By Shawna

"Is Vegeta calling you to take his dinner to his room again?" Shiro said in an exasperated tone as Katsu's cuff began beeping softly. It was the sixth night in a row that Vegeta had been staying in his room for dinner, and the sixth night in a row his calls had interrupted Shiro and Katsu in the middle of conversation.

"I don't like it any more than you," Katsu said, rising off of Shiro's cot and heading towards the kitchen. "I'll hurry back," she said over her shoulder with a grin as she entered the kitchen and scooped the waiting tray into her arms. She scaled the steps out of the basement and to the third floor quickly, faster now than she could when she first arrived. She reached Vegeta's door and knocked softly as always, entering upon hearing the usual silence. There was a single light on in the room, unusual for the prince, and Katsu stopped short upon seeing that Vegeta was sitting in his bed, shirtless, the sheets pulled up around his waist. His arms, perfectly muscled like the rest of him, were folded over his chest as usual, and Katsu briefly admired the view.

"Drop the tray on the table," he said. "And then come here."

Nervousness curdled in her stomach and sent a chill up her spine. What could he possibly want? A thought ran through her mind and the hairs on her arms stood on end. Certainly not. He always seemed disgusted by her. Certainly he didn't want what she was thinking. She placed the tray lightly on the table and approached the bed, hesitantly, stopping quite a way back from where the prince sat. He gestured for her to come closer. She took a single step. He gestured again, and she took another step. He growled impatiently.

"Right here," he said, indicating the ground right beside the bed, and Katsu hastened to the spot. She clasped her hands in front of her and kept her head down. Several seconds passed and nothing happened. Then Vegeta reached out and grasped her chin firmly and pulled her face close to his. She bit her lip and made no sound as his eyes searched hers.

"Are you good with your mouth?" He asked, a grin toying with the corners of his lips. "Because I want you to use it."

He threw her down onto the bed and she landed heavily atop his legs. She raised herself up on her arms and shook her head quickly to recover. She looked up at Vegeta to see him leaning back with his arms at his sides, watching her expectantly. She gaped.

"You want me to do what?" She whispered fiercely.

He grinned. "You know what I meant."

She stared at him, wide-eyed and for a moment she didn't know what to do. She knew that she should do as he asked, because he would beat her or have her put to death if she disobeyed him, but at the same time a wave of revulsion came over her and she knew she wouldn't be able to do it no matter how hard she tried to force herself.

"Are you going to do it or not?" He asked impatiently.

She pulled herself up to a crouched position, moving off his legs. "I-I,..." she stuttered, slowly drawing one leg off the bed. Her conviction struck her at once. "No," she said firmly and now his eyes widened.

She bolted, throwing herself off the bed and making it to the middle of the room before she stopped moving. She was all ready to run out of the room and get as far as she could when the sound of Vegeta laughing loudly stopped her. She turned around slowly. There was another person in the room, emerging from the shadows behind the curtains and shaking his head. When he moved into the light she saw that it was a very large and very bald Saiyan, and he looked a bit upset. She stared in surprise when he walked up to Vegeta and what must have been money changed hands between the two.

"What did I tell you, Nappa," Vegeta said with conviction, throwing back the covers and rising out of bed, clad in his pants. "I said she wouldn't do it and I was right." He cast a look at Katsu. "Oh, don't look so horrified," he said to her. "I was never going to let you put your filthy mouth on me."

Katsu gaped as Vegeta laughed. "Wh-what exactly just happened here?" She asked, feeling anger rising in her stomach.

Vegeta and Nappa turned to face her. "Hey, we didn't tell you you could speak," Nappa said.

"No, we didn't," Vegeta agreed. "But I'll tell you what's happening anyway. Nappa and I just had a little bet going on. He's seen you around and knows that you're my servant, so he asked if you put out. I said no, so we bet on it. Nappa was so sure that you would drop to your knees and suck me off gladly, but I knew you better." Vegeta laughed again and even Nappa, who had lost this bet, joined in. Katsu fumed.

"It's not funny!" She yelled. "I'm a servant, not a toy! You can't just make sport of me like that!"

Vegeta stopped laughing instantly and the anger in his eyes when he looked at her was enough to make her regret her outburst and become afraid.

"Of course we can make sport of you," Nappa said. "You're a slave. It's the same as being a toy. In fact, I think I can make a bit more sport of you..." He approached her rapidly, grabbing hold of her upper arm before she could move away. She gasped and tried to pull away, causing him to wrench her arm painfully.

"Nappa." Vegeta appeared beside him and rested a restraining hand on Nappa's arm, his voice full of reproof. "You don't really want to foul yourself up with that," his eyes flicked to Katsu and then back to Nappa. "Do you?"

Nappa looked at Vegeta for a few seconds, and then his grip loosened. Katsu jerked her arm back angrily and glared at Nappa, setting her jaw defiantly. Vegeta looked at her curiously, seeing the way she widened her stance, turned a bit sideways, bent her elbows slightly, and clenched her fists.

"Drop that fighting stance," he said abruptly, with a derisive snort. "And get out of my room."

Katsu relaxed her body, suddenly realizing the position she had assumed. She turned and left the room hurriedly, feeling her cheeks begin to flush with embarrassment at the thought of what she had just done: challenging the two massive Saiyans. Where did that come from? she thought, not remembering anything about fighting, other than that she had once been able to do it. She had taken up a fighting position in that room without even realizing it, having done it because she was angry and felt threatened with the two Saiyans standing in such close proximity to her. It had been a foolish action, but she wondered why it had come so naturally to her.

"He asked you to do what?" This was the first of Shiro's reactions as Katsu was recounting the story to him when she had gotten back to the basement. "Nappa grabbed you and said what?" This came second. "And then you did that?" By far this was the most vehement of Shiro's reactions, when he heard that Katsu had gone into a fighting stance right there before the two Saiyans, either one of which could have easily snapped her neck with only two of their fingers around it.

"I didn't think about it," Katsu said. "I just did it."

Shiro shook his head. "Well, conscious decision or not, it was stupid. I'm just glad that you're okay, because challenging them like that... I've seen the Saiyans kill over less."

Katsu folded her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. "It was scary," she said. "I was just scared, so I did what came naturally, and that was to fight. When Nappa grabbed me like that..."

Shiro abruptly put his arms around her and held her close. Her eyes widened but she let him hold her, because it was comforting to have the gentle contact that his arms afforded. She sighed heavily and put her arms around him, lowering her knees to draw him closer to her. Shiro drew back a bit, placing a hand on either side of her face. His breath was warm and close on her face and his lips were slackly open. His violet eyes searched her green ones, looking for any objection in them. He found none and so moved forward, pressing his lips lightly onto hers.

Katsu melted into the kiss. Her hands came up, burying themselves in his thick, soft hair. The kiss intensified and one of Katsu's hands moved higher on Shiro's head, until her fingers came into contact with the silky fur covering one of his large triangular ears.

She pulled back, breaking the contact between the two of them. Shiro stared at her in confusion.

"What's wrong, Katsu?" He asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm just not into this right now," she said softly, aware of the fact that this was not the full truth. She wasn't exactly sure why, but she had suddenly lost desire to be with him, and this was not entirely because of how she had suddenly touched one of those strange ears and remembered that he was not the same species as she was.

He looked concerned, but did not move closer to her again. He seemed to sense her discomfiture, having a lot more to do than just not being into it, and he rose, patting her shoulder awkwardly, and moved off to his own cot. Katsu sighed and placed her head in her hands. What had caused her to suddenly lose interest? She didn't know, but the mere fact that it had happened unnerved her. It was not that she was not attracted to Shiro, because she most certainly was; he was very handsome in the face and had a thin, lithe, but still toned body. She lay down heavily on her cot, unhappy with herself and having a sudden desperate need to be back home. Home. She had just gotten a memory back; a memory of the small but comfortable home she had shared with her family. She could see their smiling faces, all of them seated on the ground around the table, set with food. Everyone seemed happy and she remembered feeling so. The memory was sharp and clear, but it seemed like it had all happened a very long time ago.

A tear seeped slowly out of her eye. She wanted to be home, and she wanted to remember the names of her parents, her siblings, her hometown, her planet. None of it was there, only the memory of her house. She clung desperately to the memory, envisioning the house over and over again until she had fallen asleep.

She woke up the next morning feeling as though she had not slept at all. Her sleep had been light and fitful, and had certainly not given her the rest she needed. She groaned, not wanting to get off of her cot, rough and uncomfortable though it may be. Her eyes were barely open, but she could see that most everyone else was already up and about.

"Time to get up."

Katsu started, her eyes flying open. Shiro had come up on the other side of her bed without a sound and spoken.

"Yeah," she said, relaxing. "I guess it is." She rolled back over and pulled the thin blanket back up around her shoulders, trying to conceal the grin on her face. Shiro luaghed and reached over, taking hold of the blanket and pulling it off her. She grabbed it back and Shiro let her pull him down onto the cot, where she kissed him lightly on the lips and made him smile. It only seemed appropriate to her to act this way, as a sort of recompense for what she had done last night. Shiro had no complaints, as he put his arms around her and kissed her deeply before rising, holding her in his arms.

"We'd better get up to the third floor," he said, pressing his lips against hers one more time before setting her down. She smiled at him and they left, going up the stairs quietly, as most of the Saiyans were still sleeping in the early morning hours. They went through the normal routine, opening the windows, polishing the sconces, cleaning up the corridor as always. Katsu kept sending Shiro flirty little smiles and acting as though everything was okay, but inside she was in a turmoil. She knew that she liked Shiro, but she wasn't sure that this was the most honest expression of how she truly felt about him. She didn't know how she truly felt about him... and she couldn't figure out why she had this lingering feeling that there was someone else she wanted more.

They had barely taken two steps into the servants' stairwell, Shiro being careful to shut the door behind him, when he pounced on Katsu, pinning her gently to the wall and planting a deep kiss on her mouth.

"Shiro," she breathed, pushing him back and glancing around nervously. "Not here."

He smiled. "What could possibly happen here," he said. "No other servants will come this far up the stairwell, and the Saiyans are still asleep, and even if they weren't, they wouldn't look in here. I told you, they don't care what we do." Katsu still looked unconvinced. Shiro's face fell. "Well, if you really don't want to," he said slowly, starting to take a step back.

Katsu grabbed the collar of his black shirt and pulled him back, kissing him with all the passion she could muster. She felt his lips grinning against hers and then his hands went for the laces of her dress.

"What is going on here?!"

Katsu pushed Shiro away from her with a gasp. Light was flooding the formerly darkened stairwell from the door at the top, which now stood open, Prince Vegeta's angry form outlined in it by the light.

Katsu grabbed Shiro, pulling him back to her, crushing him against her in her sudden terror.

"Y-your Highness," Shiro said, attempting to ease Katsu's grip as he spoke. "I apologize, we were just..."

Vegeta descended the few stairs with alarming quickness and grabbed Shiro, pulling him away from Katsu and throwing him easily back into the corridor. Katsu stared at Vegeta in horror, her eyes pleading with him not to harm her.

"Your Highness, please-"

He cut her off, grabbing her by the hair and dragging her, screaming and kicking, back into the corridor. He did not throw her down by Shiro, but kept tight hold of her hair, wrenching it painfully until she stopped struggling.

Two Saiyan guards were already rushing up the corridor, having heard the ruckus, and the prince, seeing them, pointed a finger at Shiro.

"Take this servant to the dungeon," he said. "I want him locked away until I say he can come out."

One of the guards nodded and cuffed Shiro, dragging him to his feet.

"No!" Katsu began screaming and struggling again, and Vegeta used his free hand to punch her solidly in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She slumped weakly against him. Shiro saw this and his eyes widened, but he remained utterly silent. He cast a seething look at Vegeta, who smirked back, before the guard turned Shiro away and led him down the corridor.

Vegeta glared down at Katsu, who was leaning, dazed, against his legs. He straightened her up, still holding her by her hair, and smacked her across the face, more to snap her out of the daze then cause her pain. The other guard was standing by, waiting, expecting to take Katsu away to the dungeon as well.

Katsu looked up at Vegeta, still a little dazed, and mustered her strength. She spit on him, right in the face, knowing as she did it that he would probably fly into a rage and kill her, or at least order her killed.

He did neither. Anger boiled in his eyes but his face remained set in the same hard expression.

"And this girl," he said, looking up at the guard. "Take her to the dungeon as well. But tonight I want her in the courtyard. She's going to be flogged... and I'm going to do it myself." With this, he flung Katsu to the ground before the guard, then turned and walked back down the corridor, back towards his room. Katsu sent a seething look at his back, but did not give him the pleasure of hearing her scream or beg anymore, staying completely silent as the guard cuffed her and led her away.

**To Be Continued...**